


So Cold in Alaska

by allsorrowsborne



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: BDSM, Blood Kink, Canon Compliant, Character Study, F/F, Pain, Smut, dark!eve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:21:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22863958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allsorrowsborne/pseuds/allsorrowsborne
Summary: Post Rome. Eve is furious. Villanelle is confused. It’s not because of the gun. Can they find a way back to each other? Can Eve harness her rage and desire to finally get what she wants?An alternative ending to Season 2, plus backstory on Eve’s blood kink.
Relationships: Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova
Comments: 25
Kudos: 157





	1. Life is meant to be more than this

_\---_

_She put her fist through the windowpane_

_It was such a funny feeling_

_It's so cold in Alaska_

_(Velvet Underground, "Caroline Says," Berlin, 1972)_

_\---_

Eve is so angry she could kill her. Well, maybe not kill her exactly. It took a long time to clean Raymond’s blood out from her nails and she doesn’t need to repeat that experience anytime soon.

But fuck, she is tempted.

She knew Villanelle would drive her crazy of course, skipping ahead as they left the ruins, pulling on Eve’s hand like a giddy child. But this feeling is more than exasperation with Villanelle’s recklessness, more than irritation with her cocksure certainty that she’ll get what she wants. This feeling is something new, a cold sharp fury that tops all the rest, cutting through them, reducing to shreds.

Eve looks around the room at last night’s left-over spaghetti and the scrawled note next to the bed: “be back soon.” She curses under her breath. When she promised at knifepoint to give V everything, this was not what she had in mind.

\---

They’ve been shacked up in this room for three days now, on the second floor of a run-down hotel on the outskirts of Madrid. It’s not Alaska, not even close, though Villanelle keeps telling her they’ll head there soon, that delusional promise of a goddamn cabin running on repeat.

Eve knows Villanelle has a tough time with feelings, but isn’t her mind as sharp as a knife? Apparently not. Right now, Villanelle is as clueless as they come and if she tells Eve one more time that “you’ll feel better soon,” Eve will take an axe to her head too, bloody hands be damned.

It wasn’t so bad at first, Villanelle trying on gentleness like a nurse’s outfit that would get the job done. After all, Eve hadn’t killed before and she had no idea that she’d feel so spent. So, sure – if Villanelle wanted to help her out of her clothes and into the hot bath on that first disorienting night, Eve wasn’t going to resist. And if Villanelle wanted to watch cartoons and eat ice cream in bed the next day, Eve knew how to zone out and comply. ~~~~

But now the initial shock – the initial high – of Raymond has worn off and Villanelle’s concern has started to cloy.

\---

In some ways, she feels sorry for V. She clearly knows that Eve is angry and she studies her closely, trying to figure out how to get back on track. 

At first, she thought Eve was pissed about the gun. “I had to keep it hidden,” she said, in low pleading tones. “I wanted you to know what it felt like to kill.” And then, to underscore her generosity, “you needed my help.”

Villanelle offered these words like an explanation, as if Eve hadn’t realized that the gun existed until she whipped the tiny thing out from her pants, as if Eve hadn’t known that V could have killed Raymond any time she chose. Eve knows she’s been stupid around her before (the fake arsenic? how embarrassing) but to believe that V would enter the building without a weapon? Fuck. Does she really think Eve is that naïve?

Yes. Eve tenses at the hard truth of it. Clearly, Villanelle thinks Eve is that naïve. Apparently, Villanelle also thinks that Eve is delicate and weak and unable to handle the path that she’s chosen. Fuck, Villanelle won’t even acknowledge that Eve has chosen this path, insisting that she’s been pulling the strings all along. Seriously? Eve will play Villanelle’s power games all day long, but this whittled down fantasy of witless Eve? No. Niko underestimated Eve for years. Carolyn played her like a pawn. Nobody gets to do that again. Not even Villanelle.

\---

In small ways, Eve acknowledges, V is right. It’s hard to imagine a scenario like Raymond’s death that did not involve a professional assassin with a penchant for style. The pacing, the props, the blood-money splatter shot to Villanelle’s face? Somebody was showing off.

But it’s not like Eve hadn’t dreamed of such scenes before, hadn’t watched her adolescent fascination with assassins morph into full-bodied fantasies of knives and guns and cold-hearted killers, long before it was part of her job. The axe wasn’t in her repertoire, for sure. But definitely the wetness. Definitely the blood.

At first, it was pure fantasy, images of a knife to her throat injecting some kind of excitement during sex. Later she discovered the sensation of blades. Always she did it alone. Lying in the bath, pulling a razor blade over her thigh, careful to just scratch the skin, then pressing slightly till it cut. One time she pressed harder than she meant to, almost coming from the sensation alone, blood clouding the water around her.

Decades ago, in college, she’d confided in a boyfriend, yearning for an accomplice and more elaborate games. “You could be the bad guy who breaks into my room,” she said as she handed him a knife. “Then I’ll hide and you’ll have to find me.”

He was a good guy, funny and kind, and he didn’t call her a freak at least, but bad guy roles were unappealing and he mumbled his excuses, dropping their criminal psychology class later that week. 

Whatever. After all these years, Eve is fine enjoying her blood play alone. It is her private pleasure, her pet kink. At least, it was. But then Villanelle stepped into her orbit, gatecrashing her fantasies with threats and promises and lipstick blades. It was totally terrifying, totally exhilarating. And yes, there were losses. Yes, there was sacrifice. And no, she would never ever forgive her for Bill. But in the end, it was obvious. Why would she have chosen anything else?

But after Raymond, there has been no blood. No knives. No threats. Just softness and “feel better” and fucking kid gloves.

\---

At least she isn’t here now. Villanelle left earlier this morning, while Eve pretended to sleep ~~,~~ probably to get coffee and pastries from the place across the street. She’s been gone half the day now, but Eve doesn’t care. Any worry that she could feel for V’s safety is drowned out by the pleasure of being alone.

Alone, her mind wanders. It always does.

She flashes back to a night in April, nine years ago. The night that Niko proposed. A sweet night mostly, slightly marred by the taste of bile, as she washed down her doubts with too much wine and said yes, of course.

Solid Niko. Always present. Always kind. She thought she could be happy with him. Maybe she was. In the end, it was not Niko who drove her away, but Niko’s version of Eve, the one he called kind and loving and good. Niko’s Eve was nothing like her, taunting her as a symbol of normalcy that she could never achieve. The alienation was profound. Loved and unseen at the same time.

Better than the alternative, she had rationalized. Better than being seen and unloved. So she tried to make peace with Niko’s Eve, to ignore the dislocations, to be content with the fake. She did it for as long as she could. Until she couldn’t anymore.

But this goes back further than Niko. Eve knows that. She’s always looked at the world at a slightly wrong angle. Always been a little bit off. She thought it was her very best quality, but nobody else seemed to agree. Always, they wanted her to be different. Maybe not different. Always, they wanted her to be less.

Teachers who welcomed her diligence but not her edge. Parents who loved her humor but not her passion. Friends who cherished her creativity but balked at her imaginary games. Bosses who liked her dedication but dismissed her insights as overreach. For years, Eve tried not to care. She squeezed into the straitjackets that others provided and wriggled to find some pleasure in the crush.

But then Carolyn came and changed everything. Carolyn saw Eve’s capabilities. Carolyn saw Eve’s range. She took in the whole and she liked what she saw. Seen and loved? Probably not. But Carolyn did give Eve the freedom she craved, an escape route from boredom, a challenge to meet. Fuck, she even gave Eve a room with her sprawling intelligence mapped all over the wall.

(She gave her Villanelle too, of course. But that came later. The icing on the cake).

And when Carolyn got what she wanted from Eve, she tossed her aside, and Eve was lesser again.

Goddamn it. Eve gets out of bed angrily and paces the floor. At least she said no to Carolyn. At least she stayed for Villanelle. Even though Villanelle has now morphed into Niko, always hovering a bit too close, as if Eve might crumple to the floor. Loving her. Unseeing her. Seriously?

Eve slumps in a chair defeated. She looks around the room. What a shithole. It’s no worse than the rooms she’s stayed in for work, but nothing like the places she associates with V, the decadent hotels, the Paris flat. Nobody would place Villanelle here. Apparently, that’s the whole point.

Suddenly, Eve remembers when she trashed V’s apartment. God, that felt good. Tearing those clothes and breaking those bottles. Movement. Mayhem. Shuddering release. What she’d give to feel that again.

She looks around the room again. There’s nothing here to break, only the snow globe that Villanelle placed by the bed yesterday, as if the thing that Eve needs most is a memento from home.

“Don’t be ungrateful,” she’d said when Eve had unwrapped it, rolling her eyes. “Do you know how hard it is to find a snow globe in Spain in spring?”

Eve picks up the globe and imagines throwing it against the wall, exploding on impact, then crunching barefoot through the glass and fake snow on the floor.

It’s heavier than she expected. She leans back on the bed, tosses it in the air, catches it, then presses it hard against her thigh. God, the weight feels good. She pushes it deeper, then lifts it up and slams it down hard, once, twice, feeling the start of a soon-to-be-bruise, a pulsing ache spreading beneath her skin. She pushes it down deep again.

Eve likes to watch herself when she feels like this, when pain brings her more into life. She rolls off the bed and walks over to the full-length mirror in the corner of the room. Feeling the ache in her thigh persist, Eve pushes the heavy glass ball into her neck, the place where she daubed La Villanelle perfume, the place where V had leaned in and inhaled. Her reflection smiles at the memory, and Eve pushes the orb hard again, under her chin, tipping her own head back.

She looks stupid like this, in underwear and her slept-in t-shirt, a goddamn snow globe turning her on. But fuck. She’ll take what she can get. She runs her teeth across her lip, trying to find the wound from the lipstick. It healed so quickly, as lips always do, but maybe she can reopen it now. Maybe she can taste a little…

_\---_

Eve hears the sound of a key in the lock, the hotel door swinging wide. She drops the snow globe and moves her fingers to her scalp, pretending to tease out her hair.

She feels V enter the room, exuding power that skin cannot contain. Eve wills herself to not look around, but she catches V’s reflection in the mirror, striding across the room, sinew and swagger, then sprawling in a chair, swiveling around. Damn, she moves like a god.

Eve forgets her resolve and stares. The throb in her thigh deepens and spreads. She measures the space between them. It is always moving. Expanding, contracting. Never still. Hide and seek, cat and mouse, bait and switch, stab and grab. They’ve flirted across continents, fucked through proxies. Does Eve need the distance to do this? Does V? She’s so fucking close now, just a few feet away. What if Eve could cross that void, move her body from here to there, finally reach her and not let go?

But then V sees her, and something shifts, as she remembers that Eve is in the room. Villanelle turns down the heat behind her eyes, steps down her ladder one or two rungs.

“Hey Eve,” she says brightly. “Want to watch some cartoons?”

\---

It is a difficult afternoon. Villanelle is bored, flicking through channels on the TV. She can’t find Rugrats, her favorite show, and nothing else satisfies her for long. Eve finishes the bag of candy that V brought her and sighs at her fucking mess of a life.

“Want to play Battleship?” Villanelle asks. “They have it in the lobby. I hide my ships and you try to find them. You hide your ships and I try to find them. Whoever obliterates the other first wins. Cool, huh?”

“I know what Battleship is,” sighs Eve. “And no, I don’t want to play.”

“Oh, c’mon Eve, have some fun.” Villanelle leans over and prods her in the side. “I’ll even let you win.”

“Get off me,” Eve says harshly, struggling to reconcile her heady desire with this irritating child. Trying not to fixate on Villanelle’s belief that she lets Eve win.

“It’s okay, Eve,” Villanelle says, shrugging her shoulders. “I know you’re just trying to hurt my feelings.” She juts out her bottom lip to illustrate the point, hoping to make Eve laugh. It doesn’t work.

“You don’t have feelings,” Eve sneers. “I read your file. Remember?”

“Eve,” Villanelle scolds. “That’s not nice. Where is this meanness coming from? Are you on your period?”

“God, I can’t do this anymore,” Eve yells, stomping into the bathroom and slamming the door.

_\---_

When she comes out, Villanelle is sitting on the edge of the bed, eyeing her closely.

“Eve, it’s okay. I know you are in shock.” She says it with authority, like she’s the expert on feelings now, the master of Eve’s inner world. It’s the line she used when she slapped Eve’s face, moments after killing Aaron Peel.

She stands and walks over to Eve, lifting her hand as she gets close. For a split-second Eve anticipates the sting, but V touches her cheek softly, the aftermath of committing murder requiring a gentler hand.

“Oh, for fucks sake,” Eve snaps, pushing Villanelle’s hand away. “Enough with the gentleness. I’m not going to break.”

Villanelle steps back, looking confused.

“Oh, don’t look so stupid,” Eve yells, anger rising. “Ever since we got here, you’ve been treating me like I’m fragile as fuck.” She steps into the space that Villanelle opened, glaring up into her face.

“What?” Villanelle protests. “I haven’t, I wouldn’t.” She searches Eve’s eyes for a clue but finds nothing. “I don’t know what you mean,” she confesses.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Eve mimics cruelly. “For fuck’s sake, what is wrong with you?”

“Don’t do this, Eve,” Villanelle says, panicking slightly. She doesn’t understand what’s going on.

“Why?” demands Eve. “What are you going to do? Are you going to hurt me?” Her voice drips with scorn and disdain. Mocking Villanelle. “Are you going to hit me?”

“Stop it Eve.” Villanelle feels dizzy. She needs Eve to stop right now.

“Go ahead. Hit me. You did it before when you said I was in shock. Do it again. Hit me.”

“Eve, that is stupid,” Villanelle scrambles, trying to keep up. “It wouldn’t work a second time.”

“You know what’s stupid?” Eve retorts. “All of this. Cartoons and Alaska and ice cream and Battleship. You and me. It’s stupid. It’s not going to happen.”

Villanelle stares at Eve, breathing deep. She hates not knowing what to do.

“Don’t talk to me like this, Eve,” she says evenly. “I don’t always have good impulse control.”

“You think?” sneers Eve, goading her, needing to pull V into her fury so she doesn’t feel so goddamn alone. 

Villanelle breathes deep again.

“Hit me,” Eve screams and pushes Villanelle in the chest, before striking her hard across the face.

\---

Villanelle moves quickly, pushing her forearm across Eve’s throat, propelling her backward across the room. Eve stumbles but V’s hand is already at the small of her back, catching her, trapping her against the wall. Too fast, too close. Eve can hardly breathe.

Villanelle stares down at Eve, bewildered, like she’s almost forgotten whose body she holds. For a moment, Eve thinks she is going to retreat. _Please don’t stop_ , she silently wills.

“What is this, Eve?” Villanelle hisses in her ear. Eve can feel the urgency in her question, her deep desire to find stable footing in the quicksand of unknown. “I know you are angry. Are you trying to make me angry too?”

Eve blushes hard, thrilled that V has brought blood to her cheek, aware of all her flush reveals. ~~~~

“I am not playing, Eve,” Villanelle says, clearer and harder, a hint of menace in her voice. “You just hit me. You know who I am. What are you trying to do?”

“I, uh…” Eve’s voice trails off, unsure how to put this into words. Is she trying to make V angry? Maybe. Yes. But mostly she’s trying to make her…

Impatience rising, Villanelle steps closer, as if she can absorb Eve’s truths through proximity alone. Her forearm tightens against Eve’s throat and Eve squirms, letting out an involuntary moan. Instinctively, Villanelle pushes again, in and up, tipping Eve’s head back, a flesh-and-blood version of Eve’s snow globe scene. Eve moans again, louder this time. Unmistakable.

Villanelle pauses. Eve panics.

 _Please don’t stop_ , she thinks again. And then out loud. “Please don’t stop.”

Eve cannot read the expression on V’s face as she leans back an inch or two, relaxing the pressure, raising an eyebrow. “What was that, Eve?” she whispers hoarsely. “I didn’t catch it. What are you trying to say?”

“Please,” Eve spits out. “Please don’t stop.”

Villanelle crouches a little until her eyes are level with Eve’s. The heat she dialed back earlier has returned full blaze. She stares at Eve for a long time, searching for… what, exactly? Something to connect with? Something to crush? Eve forces herself to hold V’s gaze.

“You want me, Eve?” she whispers, more tender that Eve would have thought possible.

Eve nods, barely moving against V’s arm.

“Like this?” She gestures between them with her eyes, at the scene that their bodies create together. Eve murmurs her assent. “Yes.”

“You want me to frighten you?” V speaks louder now, confident, lingering over the word “frighten.”

Eve’s mind flashes to that night with Niko. “Do you want me to love you, or do you want me to frighten you?” She didn’t know how to answer then, how to explain her need. But she knows how to answer now. 

“Do you want me to frighten you?” V repeats, renewing the pressure on Eve’s throat. “Or do you want me to love you?” Eve doesn’t care how V knows the phrasing or how she has access to Eve’s intimate past. She doesn't even care that V said "love." She stares directly into V’s eyes, matching their fire.

“Both,” Eve croaks without hesitation. “Both.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trying my hand at something new. Please kudos/comment if you like it. Thanks!  
> Inspired by an old Velvet Underground song. Second/final chapter coming soon.  
> 


	2. You can hit me all you want to

Eve knows it is coming, but it’s still a shock. Villanelle kisses like a monster wave, all power and fury, turning Eve over and over, dragging her down. For a moment, Eve is lost in the current, but goddamn it if she’s going to drown so soon. She pushes back against V’s mouth, opening up, steadying herself. _I can take all of this and more_ she thinks.

V’s arm has dropped from Eve’s throat and grabs her wrists, pulling them high above Eve’s head. She drags her mouth away from Eve’s lips and latches onto her neck. “Oh god, oh god,” Eve moans, as V bites deep, fashioning bruises the shape of her mouth. Eve closes her eyes, just for a moment, letting sensation obliterate thought. No supplemental fantasies needed. The assassin is in the room.

“Tell me want you want, Eve.” Villanelle’s mouth is at her ear, hissing the words.

“What?” Eve sputters, struggling to reenter language. “You know what I want.”

“Tell me again.” And as she speaks, Villanelle’s hand snakes under Eve’s shirt, moving up her skin.

 _Fuck_ , _I’m not even wearing a bra_ , thinks Eve. She shivers despite the warmth of V’s hand.

“I want you,” Eve replies. Villanelle’s hand inches higher, reaching the curve of Eve’s left breast.

“What else?” she probes, with words, with fingers.

“I want you to scare me.” Villanelle flicks her finger over Eve’s nipple, eliciting a sharp gasp.

“You don’t seem too scared right now. What else?”

“I want you to fuck me.” Villanelle grasps Eve’s nipple between her fingers, squeezing ever so slightly.

“What else?”

“I want you to hurt me.” Eve can barely speak now, though these are the words she most needs to say, the words she most needs Villanelle to hear. “I want you to hurt me so bad”

“When do you want me to hurt you, Eve?” Villanelle squeezes her nipple harder.

“Now, V, now,” she says desperately. “I want you to hurt me now.”

“Thank you for finally telling me what you want, Eve,” says Villanelle, removing her hand quickly and stepping toward the door. “It’s about time.”

\---

Eve watches her leave the room, hip-swinging swagger back in full force. Fuck, Eve hates her. She honest to god hates her. She picks up the snow globe and throws it across the room. It hits the wall with a thud and falls to the ground. Unbroken. It didn’t even crack. Of course it fucking didn’t.

\---

After an hour, her cell phone vibrates. A text from Villanelle.

_Why did you call me V?_

Fuck. She doesn’t need this conversation right now.

_What do you mean?_

_You called me V. Hurt me V. Did you give me a pet name?_

Eve didn’t know that she had said it aloud. She uses it all the time in her head, at least when she’s feeling good. It isn’t a conscious thing. “Oksana” is distant, belonging to the past, someone who Eve doesn’t know. “Villanelle” is codename and clandestine numbers, belonging to The Twelve and MI6. Enticing for sure, but a bit too James Bond.

V is different. Nobody else has a claim on V. V belongs to her.

She thinks about answering, “because you’re mine,” but changes her mind.

_Where are you Villanelle?_ She types carefully, spelling it in full.

Twenty minutes pass before Villanelle answers.

_You told me what you wanted, Eve. Now I’m thinking about what I want._

A short pause, then a follow-up message. _It’s what people in relationships do._

Relationships? God, she’s infuriating. Absorbing niceties like osmosis, repackaging them to get under Eve’s skin. She can picture Villanelle now, toying with her, a smirk twisting across her mouth. That mouth. Eve’s fingers drift to her neck, capillaries broken under that mouth. Under her skin. Eve smiles in spite of herself and refuses to reply.

\---

Forty minutes later, Villanelle texts again.

_What are you doing, Eve?_

At least she didn’t ask “what are you wearing.” Eve considers telling the truth. What am I doing? Stewing. Hating. Envisioning blood.

 _Nothing_ , she types instead.

_Oh. OK. I thought you might be masturbating. I don’t want you to masturbate, okay?_

Seriously? Eve should throw the phone across the room too. But her thumbs move across the screen instead.

_I’m not masturbating. And it’s not your business if I do._

Two fucking hours before V replies.

_I’m sorry, I got distracted. It is my business now, okay? I don’t want you to masturbate today. Don’t do it. I will know if you do._

_How?_ Eve starts to type. Then stops. Deletes. She doesn’t need V’s answer to that.

 _I can’t believe your fucking nerve_ , she types, then smiles slyly, sliding her phone low on her stomach, anticipating the buzz of V’s reply.

 _You should,_ Villanelle responds quickly _. I am very believable when I want to be. What can I make you believe today?_

Eve smiles as the cold case vibrates against her skin. Ever so slightly. Barely perceptible. But a start.

_Fuck you, Villanelle. Anything else you don’t want me to do?_

Another reply. Another buzz. A tiny theft without V’s knowledge.

_Yes. Don’t sleep. I will be out very late tonight but I don’t want you to fall asleep._

_Oh yeah?_ Eve’s fingers move quickly now. _What will happen if I do?_

Ellipses dance on Eve’s phone for a minute and then they disappear.

\---

8pm. Eve knows she will stay awake. How hard can it be? She showers, gets dressed and leaves the room to eat dinner at a restaurant nearby. Eve hasn’t been outside since she arrived here, and it feels good to walk through the evening alone. The wait for a restaurant table is long and Eve is suddenly ravenous. She settles for a deli sandwich instead and finds a park bench where she can eat. The bread is thick, doughy, and tough to chew. Its feels good to work her mouth.

Eve runs her fingers along the bench, cruising for splinters. Old habits die hard. A rusty nail juts out from a slat, interrupting her path. Unsafe. She softly cups her hand around it, bringing her palm carefully down. Rubbing. Circling. Testing. A gentle lover. She pictures it breaking her skin and smiles at her imaginary fate. _Chasing and chased by a psychopathic killer, slain by tetanus and rust._

A young couple pass by, arm in arm, and her mind wanders to V. The temperature drops and Eve stands. Time to head back to the room.

\---

9:20pm. Somewhere, Eve has taken a wrong turn. She’s not at the hotel as she expected, but across the street from a small cathedral, illuminated against the night sky. Small groups of people gather outside. Evening congregants? Tourists? _I can be a tourist too_ , she thinks. _I have time to kill_. 

The smell inside is intoxicating. Oils and incense and something else. Lightheaded, she sits in a pew, digging her thighs into its edge.

Eve was not raised with religion and she hasn’t spent much time in churches. Funerals and weddings, mostly. Containers for death and love. She remembers when her cousin married an Irish man in Connecticut, the ceremony at a Catholic church. Her parents had taken her to buy an outfit and they’d argued over a red dress. She wanted it so badly. It was the red of firetrucks speeding to an emergency, the red of fire heating her up. “You can’t wear that Evie,” her mom had insisted, choosing a pale peach dress instead. She was 10, maybe 11. Too old for temper tantrums. Too young for adolescent rage. But she screamed at her mother regardless, calling her names and stomping away. Eve doesn’t clearly remember the wedding. Only the dress and her rage. 

She moves to gaze at the crucifixion scene at the altar. The imagery is familiar. The intensity is not. Blood, sacrifice, sadness, flesh, loss, yearning, not-yet-death. She cannot stop looking at Christ’s hair, matted to his head with sweat. She feels a pull toward something ancient. She remembers that he was younger than her.

Leaving, she passes a cluster of candles, where an older woman lights a votive flame, whispering fervently under her breath. Eve longs to crouch down to feel the fire, to let molten wax envelope her face.

 _What are you doing, Eve?_ she asks herself, as the old woman crosses herself then leaves. _What the fuck are you doing?_

\---

11:15pm. Eve turns on the hotel TV and flicks through channels. Turns it off. Everything is in Spanish and Eve was always shitty at languages. Not a natural. Not like V. Eve is nothing like V. _Eve and V. E.V_. _Evie._ God she’s bored. She tries to play Angry Birds on her phone, but soon gives up. Stupid game that Niko downloaded. One more thing to delete.

12:30am. She takes another shower. The hot water runs out quickly. Eve stands in the cold for far too long, watching goosebumps rise on her skin.

1:25am. She lies on the bed, hair still damp, thinking of V. Her fingers move to the bruise on her thigh, and then they move again. There’s no way that V will know.

2:30am. Her phone buzzes.

_Still awake?_

_Yes_

_Good girl_

Eve lies back on the bed, smiling, and allows herself to rest her eyes.

\---

She wakes to sunlight streaming through the blinds and Villanelle sitting at the foot of the bed.

“Wakey, wakey, Eve,” she says, reaching under the sheet to drag a fingertip along the sole of Eve’s foot. It tickles. Eve jerks back quickly.

“Fuck, how long have you been sitting there?”

“How long have you been sleeping?” V counters, sweetly. “After I told you to stay awake?”

 _OK_ , thinks Eve. _What now?_ She considers telling Villanelle to fuck off, that she doesn’t need anyone telling her what to do, that she can sleep whenever she wants, that she’s tired of V fussing over her. But V isn’t fussing over her now. Far from it. She’s looking at her with undisguised hunger, daring Eve to match whatever she brings.

“How long, Eve?” she asks again, more insistent, and it’s clear to Eve that this is a challenge, an invitation to reenter their game.

Eve sits up straighter and looks at V for far too long. She wants to say something clever and cutting, but her mind refuses to spit up the words.

“I tried,” she finally says, making her decision. “I wanted to please you. I didn’t mean to fall asleep.” Eve says these words strategically, to move the plot forward, to finally get to whatever comes next. She’s shocked to notice they also feel true.

V crawls across the bed and kneels next to Eve. “I have to punish you now,” she says matter-of-factly, not even trying to mask the thrill in her eyes. “To help you learn,” she adds nonchalantly, as if Eve needed clarification. 

“Are you going to kill me?” Eve asks, for old times’ sake, unable to repress a smile.

“No,” V whispers. “But you might die a few times anyway.”

And then she carefully leans over Eve’s body and kisses her slowly on the mouth.

\---

“Here. Do this for me,” Villanelle instructs, pulling Eve’s hands to the belt at her waist. Eve has no idea how removing V’s pants will count as punishment, but she’s not about to argue. She undoes the heavy buckle easily and moves her fingers to Villanelle’s fly.

“No, Eve,” Villanelle speaks firmly. “That’s not for you.” Eve stops, confused. What does V want her to do?

“Just the belt,” Villanelle prompts her. “Remove it and give it to me.”

Eve’s fingers tremble as she tugs the brown leather belt free from V’s pants and hands it to her.

“Thank you, Eve. Now undress.”

Eve hesitates. She likes her body. It is strong and functional and makes her feel all kinds of good. But getting naked, here and now, in front of V? She suddenly feels shy.

“Is there a problem, Eve?” Villanelle asks innocently, though it’s clear she knows exactly what’s going on.

“No problem,” Eve insists. She pulls her t-shirt over her head and kicks off her underwear before she loses her nerve.

Villanelle just stares. She’s quiet for a very long time, longer than Eve has ever seen. She watches V watching her. What is on her mind? V furrows her brow, as if trying to remember something, maybe a word that she can’t quite recall, even though it’s on the tip of her tongue. Eve shivers slightly from the cold, and V snaps out of her reverie.

“Come here Eve,” V directs, her voice cracking ever so slightly. Eve walks toward her, trying to stay steady, trying not to need something to grasp. V touches her upper arm far too lightly and steers her toward the wall.

“Turn around,” she whispers and then touches a spot high on the wall. “Keep your hands here, okay?”

“Okay,” breathes Eve, raising her hands above her head, exposing her back and ass and thighs to V.

“I’m going to hurt you now, okay?” she says.

Eve doesn’t know why V keeps saying “okay” but right now she doesn’t care. “Okay” she says in reply and tenses as the belt swings through the air.

\---

The first couple of hits are nothing much. Is V testing her? Or just teasing? She groans as the leather meets her skin, but it’s more from anticipation than pain.

“Harder,” she says without thinking. “I need you to hit me harder than that.”

V will surely crush her for that. For trying to dictate her own punishment. For telling her she’s doing it wrong. But V doesn’t say anything. Instead, she swings the belt faster and it thuds hard across Eve’s upper back. She does it again. And again.

“Like that?” she asks. Eve can’t quite believe she is checking.

“Yes,” she rasps. _Just do it already._ “Like that.”

Villanelle brings the belt down on Eve’s back a couple more times, then once across her ass. Just to make sure. Eve groans her approval, pushes back into space for more, and V finally surrenders, giving Eve everything, all restraint gone.

\---

If Eve could think, she would realize that V needs this just as much as her. V has held herself so tight the past few days, since Eve turned against her after the ruins, driven by feelings that neither of them understand. Eve’s fury runs deeper than time and Villanelle has never felt so lost and inept.

She had promised to take care of Eve, so she dug deep for memories of gentleness to reenact. There weren’t many. Ice cream with Sebastian. TV with Konstantin. Battleship with Gabriel before she broke his neck. Somehow, she kept doing it wrong. And along with worry and vulnerability, Villanelle added shame to the list of things she feels when she is with Eve.

But now Eve stands before her, stretched tall, demanding things that Villanelle can give, asking for violence like a bouquet. And look at how Eve eats it up, hungry caterpillar, consuming the blows without hesitation, calling her “V” like a sweetheart name. And V’s newfound feelings rocket through her body, from torso to throat to shoulder to arm, and down down onto Eve’s back, a canvas of welts carved by V’s love.

\---

Villanelle must have stopped sometime, though Eve has no idea when. She left her body for a while and hovered in the air, studded with flecks of golden light, until V’s blows called her back and Eve plunged down into her body, diving deep to a tranquil place, anchored securely by pain.

Eventually, her legs can’t hold her weight and she literally crumples to the floor, crawling toward V as she crouches beside her. V takes Eve into her lap, cradles her head, says her name again and again. When Eve’s eyes finally focus on V’s face, it looks like V’s been crying. Neither of them mention it. “Let me get you to bed,” V says, half lifting Eve from the floor and helping her lie face down on the mattress, so the sheet won’t rub her back. And then she lies down next to her, fingers interlocking with fingers, and stays there for a long time.

\---

“I’m going to be gentle now,” V says, pulling the ice bucket close. “I know you don’t like gentle, but you don’t have a choice.” She smiles as she says it and sticks out her tongue. She’s never felt as good as this, trailing ice over Eve’s back, making her shiver and squirm.

“It’s too cold,” Eve protests, squealing and laughing like a little kid squirted by a water gun.

“I think you can take it,” V teases lightly, before letting the ice slide to the floor. “Besides, I have to take care of you.” She snuggles up to Eve, lazily, possessively. “It’s what people in relationships do.”

\---

Everything ends. Everything passes. Washing in with awe and wonder, washing away on a blood tide.

A cold feeling lodges in Eve’s stomach. Disappointment? No. She knew this was coming. Resignation, though, as reality surfaces. Grief at the death of a fantasy spent.

Had she honestly thought Villanelle was it? The devil incarnate? The big bad wolf? A fist to her core that would tear out her heart? How stupid. There are no fairy tale endings for her. No hungry children eaten alive. She is still fury, pulled to the shadows. Villanelle is still dreaming, imagining light.

Stupid. Lost. Unaligned. Agony in a different register, not so easily tamed.

Eve grows aware of the mattress beneath her, cold and soggy from the dripping ice.

\---

“Eve,” Villanelle’s voice pulls her back. ““I said I was going to take care of you, okay?” she repeats it, insistent. “And you can take care of me too.” Her voice relaxes, stretching out comfortably. “It’s what people in relationships do.”

Eve blinks her eyes, trying to focus. Why the fuck is Villanelle drawn to that phrase? Perhaps it’s not to aggravate Eve, a platitude tossed like a toy grenade. Perhaps it’s her tether to the rules of engagement when feelings are not a reliable guide.

_Oh baby._

Whatever the reason, V likes to repeat it. Whatever the source, she’s clearly attached.

Did she steal it from Anna, maybe? Words of wisdom on the meaning of commitment from the teacher who fucked her student in her husband’s chair? Perhaps she sneaked it from Konstantin, fatherly advice on the meaning of family, lovingly dispensed with orders to kill? Anna. Konstantin. V’s closest relationships. _Fuck_ , she thinks. _We are doomed._

We.

Something shifts. Does not soften.

Interludes have their value, she reasons. A respite before the explosion to come. She pictures herself as shards of glass, multiplying, piercing time and space and flesh. Her own flesh speaks out, making its choice, awakened, enlivened. Split open by V’s muscle and aim.

V’s words are still in her head: “It’s what people in relationships do.”

Eve rolls on her side, wincing slightly, and looks at the face of a thousand expressions, resting now, content and still.

Eve wants to say, “define relationship.” She wants to say, “how the fuck can I take care of you?” She wants to die and kill and shed her skin, squeezing till bones turn to dust, swallowed alive by the ruin within.

She leans forward and kisses V’s lips, tasting of salt-sweat and candy cane.

“Okay,” she says. For now, at least. “Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My first fic for this fandom. Please kudos/comment if you like it. Thanks!


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